That's not bad considering the RLX only has one powertrain option.

 

 

At the right price the car will sell. True of any car, including the ILX.

Yes, the market finds value in the 5 series and E-Class at their price point, it just doesn't find the same value in the RLX.

Again, at the right price point it could sell that many today. The car is a nice car, no doubt. But in a free market all things find their true value. If Acura can't make the car at a cost that they can still make a profit at its market value they should not make that product. Harsh but true. At least they figured it out on the ZDX, but a little late.

I hope Acura takes a lesson from this for the TLX. They can't afford to price that car too high, the market just won't support it.

 

I am surprised they sold 830, I do agree I guess incentives are helping.

 

The only real issue is, everyone else has been on an upward price march, because they can justify it. Now the 335i/S4 can easily cost over $60k, interior plastics and all. Yet they can command such prices.



About the 5 series - having driven a few, I can easily understand why they sell well, and can command up to $80k-$90k before reaching the M5. They are comfortable and fast - I'm aware these are two flat impressions. The E class is more akin (in it's current form) to a 5 series with less willing athleticism, at a lower price, this is all in addition to being a Mercedes-Benz. Add on top, the now normal ~60%-70% German lease rate (vs finance/buy), then the sales dominance is quite easily within reach. Lexus is probably the only real threat to the German heads, but they screwed up three times with their GS, in the past 3 years. The market isn't too forgiving of this, and it may take some time to recover... I suspect it will take another 3 years, assuming constant product focus ADHD doesn't inflict more wounds on Lexus.

 

Has the Lexus GS ever sold well relative to the 5 Series and the E Class? I don't recall.

 

With respect to the XTS, I'd be interested in knowing how many of those are the new V-sport version with the TTV6.

 

^^^^
Given GM's reluctance to release CTS-V numbers until the last couple of weeks, after six years on the market, you're never going to know how many XTS V-Sports were sold. The standard reasoning given is "competitive advantage". Uhmmmm, OK.

 

In this financial climate, a fancy German luxury car has a higher chance of getting "keyed" in the parking lot over an "anonymous" styled RLX.

Lots of wealth haters these days.

 

You don't even know how true this is. It's not even luxury, if you have a new non-luxury car, your chances of getting keyed goes way up, especially parking at a mall. Believe it or not, for some, having a new car at all is considered wealthy.

 

If I got a new RLX, I'll just keep it dirty. Dirt and a couple dead leaves is nice camo from wealth. No bird poop please.

 

dropped my RL off for service this morning
they had an RLX as a courtesy car sitting in front of dealer - not sure if that says anything about sales

 

November RLX sales =676, down from October.

http://www.hondanews.com/media_stora...nov13sales.jpg

 

What do you think this says about the impact of the incentives? Do you think they will get extended beyond Jan 4th? I gotta think that these meager results given the deep incentives they will have to extend their current pricing or they won't sell many cars.

If you can buy an Advance for between $49 - $53k what do you think they will price the hybrid? I can't see them getting almost a $20k premium [i.e. pricing it at $70k as some have speculated]. Corey -- any insight??

When do you think we will see the hybrid in the dealers and get the actual pricing?

 

^^^
Agree that Acura will never get a $20k premium over the approximately $50k market price for the PAWS Advance. My personal price point for the Hybrid Advance is around $60k max, and its going to have to be something special to justify that level.

JeffX just posted on TOV he will be test driving the Hybrid SH-AWD starting tomorrow and posting his review in the coming days.

I'll be at the dealer this week for my TL emissions inspection and will ask if they are getting the same info as Colin regarding demo models at the dealer this month.

 

Pricing is a function of supply. Acura has to sell the cars they made, so they have to discount the RLX's sitting on the lot in order to move them. With the AWD RLX, my fear is that they are going to make only a very limited number and thus won't have to discount as deeply to sell them. Worse yet, if the reviews are very positive (as I suspect they will be), there may be a shortage of the AWD model leading to full MSRP or better being charged for those lucky few to have the pleasure of driving one right after the sales launch. Long term, Acura will still have to discount the AWD version eventually to move any appreciable numbers since it still lacks the cache and snob appeal that is critical in this segment. That's when I'll be buying mine.
Just my two cents.

 

Acura has a big decision coming regarding the sport hybrid's pricing given the FWD RLX's standing.

I'm hoping the driving impressions will be positive, to make up for the car rags' collective "meh" over the RLX thus far.

I am looking 1.5-2 years down the line when it's time to retire the V wagon to garage queen duty.

 

Very low for the segment and a new car, but considering how it started I guess they will be happy with 500+ a month for a while. If the SH-AWD is coming in spring and they call it a 2014 that will be a disaster, they need to at least roll the model year with the SH-AWD make them all 15s.

 

I think they are boxed into a corner, they will not lower the FWD pricing and can not make the SH-AWD lower that that. I suspect $65K in Advance trim, and even then I bet they sell very few.

 

Honda Sets All-Time December Sales Record to Earn 2nd Best Annual Sales Total for American Honda;
Acura Light Trucks Post Best Year in Brand History

CR-V annual sales top 300,000 for 1st time, joining Accord and Civic
Accord posts best annual sales since 2008 with double-digit gain plus strong December
RDX posts 20th straight monthly increase, smashes previous mark with sales up 51.6% for the year
MDX has best sales month in model history

American Honda Motor Co., Inc. today reported total 2013 vehicle sales of 1,525,312 units, an increase of 7.2% for the year and the 2nd-best result in company history. A total of 135,255 Honda and Acura vehicles were sold in December, eclipsing last December's strong sales by 1.9% (5.9% based on the Daily Selling Rate, or DSR*). Honda Division annual sales reached 1,359,876 units in 2013, a year-over-year increase of 7.4% and the second best all-time sales total for the Honda brand. The Acura Division posted year-to-date sales of 165,436, a 5.9% gain and the best result since 2007.

Honda Division sold 119,504 vehicles in December, a 2.4% increase from the previous December. Acura Division posted December sales of 15,751.

Honda
Honda core products continued to show substantial sales strength throughout 2013. Based on the latest R.L. Polk data, Accord, Civic, CR-V and Odyssey continue to lead retail sales in their respective segments, with the Pilot SUV also gaining significantly. With respect to total CY2013 sales:

CR-V surpassed 300,000 sales for the 1st time while posting a December best of 28,759 units.
Accord sales were up to 10.5% to 366,678 units, its best showing since 2008.
Civic sales were up 5.7% to 336,180 units, its best result since 2008 and the 3rd best in its 40-year history.
Odyssey sales surged 32.7% in December for a yearly total of 128,987 units.
Pilot sales rose 10.3% to 126,678 units.

"Breaking our December sales record is a great way to finish a near-record year, but perhaps more significantly, the CR-V joins Accord and Civic as the 3rd Honda vehicle to sell more than 300,000 units per year for the 1st time in our history," said John Mendel, executive vice president of sales at American Honda. "In a hotly competitive market, where every manufacturer brought their best products, our core models demonstrated significant growth without having to resort to fleet sales to drive volume as some of our competitors do."

Acura
Acura light trucks continued to break sales records in 2013 with RDX smashing previous bests and the all-new MDX completing a strong 4th quarter with its best-ever month to push Acura trucks to their best sales year ever.

RDX recorded monthly bests for 20 straight months, completing its record run in 2013 with a total sales increase of 51.6% for the year.
MDX sales continued to rise sharply, delivering a 29.0% increase in December for its best month in history on strong customer demand and improving vehicle inventories. Full-year sales were up 4.3% to 53,040.
RLX brought solid growth to the luxury sedan segment for Acura in an abbreviated model year, posting sales of 5,053 since going on sale last Spring.

"Customers are finding the combination of luxury, comfort, performance and utility in the RDX and MDX to be pretty irresistible," said Jeff Conrad, vice president and general manager of Acura Sales. "With the strongest light truck lineup in our history, we're now turning our focus on our sedan lineup with the all-new TLX to deliver further growth for Acura in 2014."

*The daily selling rate (DSR) is calculated with 25 days for December 2013 and 26 days for December 2012. Year-to-date, the DSR is calculated with 307 days for 2013 and 307 days for 2012. All other percentages in release are unadjusted; see table for adjusted DSR figures.

 

Considering the reviews and it's poor roll out I guess a run rate if 500-600 is decent for what it is.

 

From the beginning, I felt that ~500/mo would have been decent for the RLX (as it currently is). I know this is a low target but again, based upon what Acura gave us, as long as it sold more than the M & the Equus, I figured it was doing OK. Hopefully they will give it an extensive MMC to fix some problems (but since the hybrid is debuting with little changes my guess is that this will be at least another year away).

December's #s are a little low considering the $10k off sale; my local dealerships sold a lot more than usual so I was expecting sales in the 800s again. Cars.com says that there are 1,877 out there, which is the lowest inventory it has been a while (there are ~2,900 GS & Ms out there for reference; GS averaged $7k & M had $5k off last month - both have less markup than RLX if that matters).

Here are year end comparison #s:

Eclass 8,727 +25%; 69,803 +7.1%
5series 8,102 -3.4%; 56,863 +.1%
CTS 3,217 -4.6%; 32,343 -31.2%
A6 2,686 +43.3%; 22,428 +18.1%
XTS 2,670 -9.2%; 32,559 +116.4%
GS 2,604 -3.1%; 19,742 -10.9%
MKS 1,074 -20.4%; 10,793 -13.8%
XF 805 +53%
RLX/RL 597; 5,053
M 367 -56.8%; 5,283 -42.1%

 

A little birdie told me that Saitama isn't even capable of producing very many of the hybrids.

They say that even if they were capable of building more, they wouldn't be able to get enough batteries.

 

You have got to be kidding me.

They sold 32,600 of that XTS, and reviewers complain about the RLX.

:-/

 

These are great numbers. Obviously on the forum we (collectively) bash Acura for losing its ways, build cars w/out the consumer in mind, etc. Looking at the numbers, their formula seems to be working pretty well. I'm ready to see what the TLX will look like. Maybe a baby RLX from what many on the forum have stated. Who knows.

Even with the steep discounts the RLX is on track to sell more units than the 2G RL (if it hasn't already). I think 500-800 models a month is good for a car like this. It's not a bad car, just very conservative in looks, yet looks nice. It just doesn't grab my attention, but then again I'm not the target demographic either. I'm still a big fan of the jewel eyes on the MDX and RLX. Very diffferent.

 

First the M has been on the market for 3.5+ years in current form and for the first year and a half was selling over well over 1000. The M only started to slide last year and Infinit always heavily discounts their cars, one of the things that kills their resale. GS and MKS have also been around a yea yor more, I am actually impressed the bland MKS sells as well as it does. I think the CTS numbers are off because the new CTS just hit and is also priced higher than old CTS.

 

Honestly, if you look at other cars in the same or similar price range it really doesn't sell well at all. It should be selling 2 to 3 times more per month. I think we 'discount' the car because the RL was such a sales flop in its later years, but this car should be selling well over 1,000 per month. I think the Acura name just doesn't have enough cache to sell it, but sadly 'Buick' sells a car more than 'Acura.' And of course they just didn't put enough excitement into this car. I think it is a nice car, it just too subdued.

 

It's annoying that reviewers don't have the time or the inclination to learn the systems of which they are so critical.

Even Brian Cooley, who is generally pro-Honda and tech savvy, didn't seem to understand what AcuraLink was about.

He mentioned AcuraLink in his review and said that it was the interface for the Nav system, but then neglected to use AcuraLink when he started using the Nav and ended up being critical of the RLX navigation system because of this.

He did the same thing for the MDX and the RLX.

If you want AcuraLink to be your address-finding interface and you want to use natural linear voice for the address finding, then you need to press the button over your head to do it.

If he'd really used AcuraLink, he'd have found that he could do exactly what he said he wanted to do: blurt out the street number, street name and town all at once and let the voice recognition sort it

 

The last-year mindset 60's retro Mad Men advertising and comedians out for coffee doesn't help, either.

The first set of ads, the ones that provoked intelligent people into wondering if they wanted to go the Road Not Travelled, was a better set of ads.

The new ads don't tell us anything much about the idea at all, and it's coddling people who are already leaning to buy Honda and Acura anyway. We know to look beyond it, but your typical Cadillac and Volvo owner will not know to look beyond the sarcasm of the advertising, even if it is clever.

It is just amazing that GM sold something like 37,000 units of that awful Cadillac XTS in such a short time, and it is maddening that people are critical of the RLX's interfaces when Cadillac CUE (which is just awful) is selling so well.

I don't get it. I don't get the public mindset, and I don't get the corporate mindset for advertising.

It almost makes me want to get on a plane for Torrance. With a baseball bat.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Sales of the XTS show that luxury car drivers don't actually care about the drivetrain. They care about the brand name.

 

I have to admit, I think the configurable LCD gauge cluster is pretty sweet.


And they do offer AWD and 400+ hp/360+ torque in the VSport version.


Also, consider the XTS probably only exists to cater to the old school caddy buyers who just want a big boat-of-a-caddy to drive around in. Cars like the CTS and ATS are off trying to fight the Germans. In this regard, they already had a subset of the market that just had to buy a Cadillac, so they have a car for that subset. There is no subset that I can think of that just has to buy an Acura - no meaningful one, anyway. They haven't built any kind of decades-long tradition like Cadillac has - not yet, anyway.

 

Didn't think of it in that sense. I definitely see where you're coming from.

 

Maybe you should charter a plane, you might have a lot of company!

 

The last time that I threatened to do that, it was close to the same location, and it involved Internet Brands, the purchasers of intellectual properties who bought many Internet car forums, including the one we're typing on. :-) It's a hedge fund that is owned by other hedge funds, and sometimes they just get a little too big for their breeches. The current Duke of Westminster is at the end of one of their chains of ownership, via Grosvenor Capital, his own hedge fund.

Also...something has happened recently. The last time that I checked Edmunds prices for an RLX Advance in my part of the world, they told me 52,500. That was just 300 more than I paid for mine.

But early this morning when I checked, the price had moved up to 55,707.

Maybe word's finally getting out...not only does this car *not* totally suck, it's actually a lot of quality, reliability, performance and technology for the money.

 

We need an advertising campaign that catches the attentions of these kinds of people, instead of one that is just pandering amusingly to people who already know.

I think that their original campaign for the Road Not Taken was a better idea, and they should place it carefully in the right places to attract people who three to five year old Cadillacs who are tired of paying for repairs.

On the other hand, I keep hearing that they can't even make all that many RLX, even if people wanted them.


That's a decent piece that appeals to people who are tired of what they've got. Tired of bling, tired of paying for repairs, tired of putting tonnes of gasoline in their cars, tired of sloppy handling...just tired....

 

$55,700 is what I paid for my advanced last Aug. Maybe Acura is slipping Edmunds some cash under the table to revise their prices.

 

I do not blame the reviewers, I blame Acura, bland styling somewhat confusing dual screen head unit and really nothing to write about that makes the car stand out, PAWS? Sorry nothing new there.

 

Acura is partially to blame, Cadillac does not advertise Technology or "Advance" while Acura does. Cadillac pushes Luxury and there is still a segment of Americans that seem to agree, I do suspect that segment is aging quickly and thus Cadillac's push lately to appeal to young crowd with CTS and ATS.

 

Cadillac XTS sells a lot to livery services and rental car fleets, while Acura does not.

That being said, I think it might be easier for a car with a tainted history to sell than a car with no history at all.

 

Or maybe we're finally talking about it enough. :-)